Judge rules regional Mobile YMCA board member election can proceed

View full sizeAn artist's rendering of the proposed future home of the YMCA's Moorer branch. The controversial plan has sparked a lawsuit in Mobile County Circuit Court.

MOBILE, Alabama -- A judge today refused to stop a membership election of the YMCA, paving the way for a vote this month that will determine the outcome of a controversial plan to relocate the downtown branch.

Some members of the Moorer YMCA who want to block that move have sued the regional YMCA board. They sought an injunction to halt the July 19 election -- which they argued would be rigged to favor the current board’s position.

Mobile County Circuit Judge Joseph “Rusty” Johnston, in a written order issued after a morning hearing, stated that the plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate that they would suffer “irreparable harm” if the election takes place under the current procedures.

“If indeed all of these future events happen, the Plaintiffs may be harmed, but not harmed irreparably,” he wrote.

During today’s hearing, Johnston said that if the election tramples on the rights of the plaintiffs, he would have the power invalidate it.

“Even if they went ahead and sold the property the next day, I could reverse that,” he said.

Tommy Fulton, a past chief volunteer officer of the YMCA of South Alabama, said he was happy that the election could proceed. He said the YMCA sent a letter to each member explaining the vote, which will take place at the Moorer branch downtown. Members can vote in person or by proxy, he said.

Fulton said there are 21 candidates -- including 13 current board members -- for 21 seats. Voters can vote the entire slate up or down, or they can cast votes for and against individual candidates.

Fulton said 10 percent of the membership must participate for the election to be valid, and candidates will win if they receive a majority of the votes cast.

“This way, the members will have a voice in what happens,” he said.

Jonathan Friedlander, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said Johnston’s decision was “very fair and probably legally correct.” But he said he wished Johnston would have allowed him to present evidence in support of his effort to persuade the judge to declare the election procedures invalid.

Friedlander took heart in the judge’s decision to deny a defense effort to throw the suit out.

“The case isn’t over by any stretch,” he said.

The only fair way to hold an election, Friedlander argued, would be for the judge to appoint a special master who could oversee the balloting and develop rules for voting and selecting candidates. He noted that the current board set up the candidate nominating committee.

“The board was not ever properly elected,” he said. “I think their hands are clearly not clean.”

Michael Strasavich, an attorney for the YMCA board, acknowledged that the plaintiffs have accused the organization of failing to follow its bylaws in selecting current board members.*

“Everything that we have looked at says the remedy for that is to have an election. And we’re doing that,” he said. “There’s nothing for the court to invalidate at this point until after the election.

The dispute over election procedures is a warm-up for the real issue that prompted the lawsuit -- a strategic plan that calls for paring the organization’s $5 million debt by selling the Moorer building on Water Street and moving into 20,000-square-foot Kress Building on Dauphin Street.

Fulton said the plan is the best option for addressing a debt problem that has drawn the attention of the national YMCA organization. He said even board members who initially opposed the plan ended up voting for it.

“We worked on that thing for months,” he said. “None of these people ever helped out.”

But Friedlander said the proposal would turn the downtown branch into a “strip mall Y,” with no swimming pool or courts for basketball, volleyball and racquetball that are available at the current location. He said the board has not been transparent about its finances.

“We have no way to confirm or deny what they’re saying because they won’t release their financial data,” he said. “The reason (Moorer) has not been properly maintained is because they borrowed so much money to build and maintain these Baldwin County branches.”

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*Corrects an earlier version that misstated the position of attorney Michael Strasavich.